Is it all down to money though? With the Bolshoi performing here in the UK I'm getting a chance to compare company tactics.

Even for a provincial tour the Bolshoi casts experienced leading dancers in the major roles and doesn’t subject us to some favoured teacher’s under-talented protégé. The newcomers are allowed to cut their teeth on the smaller roles and I've already spotted two that show a lot of promise (one of them. Viacheslav Lopatin, looks exceptional) and I'm told there are a couple of other new young talents to be spotted as the tour progresses

The style is different too, far more classical in Swan Lake than the Kirov's renditions (okay, the Kirov does have a superior production but I’m talking dancing here) without the exaggerated poses and slow motion pas de deuxs, neither of the girls I saw as Odette/Odile goes in for six o'clock extensions either. Generally Bolshoi dancers stay put, though many guest elsewhere of course and its telling that Vishneva is now forging links with the Bolshoi after comparative neglect at home. Even the corps de ballet is superior in Moscow and dances without the terrible clatter that the Kirov girls make. I know now which company I prefer.

To understand what I think Cassandra is getting at here, take a look at the website www.dansomanie.net, on the Maryinskii thread. There is a "dropshot" of Daria Pavlenko and Korsakov dancing the Bluebird pas de deux.

Then take out the Delouche DVD of Markova "The Legend" instructing Nolwenn Daniel of the POB in Florine's variations, and listen carefully to what Markova says.

But I'm one of those bozos who "watch" dancing with my sense of hearing, the eye being secondary.

What that poor girl does is straight Balanchine - she hears the accent wherever she plans to bang out the hyper-extension, NOT where Tchaikovski placed it.

In any event, the CLAP of her pointe shoe is such, that one can hardly hear the music over the din.

All the fascinating curves and inclines of the body, that tell the ambiguities of the tale, have been erased.

As it happens, the Bluebird is based on the Lai de Yonnec, a very strange, and not all that cheery, mediaeval tale. When one dances it, one should at least approximate telling the tale, otherwise it's just a lot of mindless jumping around.

Personally, I don't go to the theatre to watch tall, good-looking gymnasts strutting their stuff, adding a cute little simper here and there to make it look like "Art". The Chinese circus exists for that.

I'd rather stay home and continue my hitherto-somewhat-vain attempts to read a score properly.

Which is why I walked out of the Maryinskii performances here at Paris this past autumn - the vacant stares, the bean-pole women waving their limbs about in the "Lac" pas de trois ... three other people in the trade told me they walked out for the precise same reason.

In fact, it was one of those days when one mutters to oneself, "Paris Opera, return - all is forgiven!"

I agree wholly with your point, but not with the details that support it.

Daria Pavlenko, among the current roster of Mariinsky dancers, is one of those who doesnt tout the 220 degree extension. She also is not as hyper-extended as many of the young upstarts, including Vostrotina and Somova. In fact, my opinion is that Pavlenko is caught between generations, between the changing of the old guard (Ayupova, Terekhova, the last of those wonderful old-fashioned Kirov ballerinas) and the new -- Somova, Vostrotina, Novikova and others, the younger ones.

Granted, although most of the young ones are pushing the Chinese circus look you describe, not *every* Mariinsky dancer is doing so. I personally haven't seen Pavlenko dance in the way you've described (partly because she dances about twice per year here now, unfortunately). But I can cite plenty of examples of other Mariinsky dancers who adhere to upholding this gymnastic aesthetic, and I agree that it is more than disconcerting.

I haven't seen the dropshot you provided yet, given the speed of my internet connection. But if she was dancing Bluebird, it must not be a recent performance at all.

Incidentally, the dansomanie.net site points out that Vishneva will dance in "Ondine" on July 18th towards the end of the White Nights’ Festival, and that there are plans to film this performance. I had not heard that and do not know the source of that information, but thought I’d translate and share.

For those interested, on April 18 she appears at the Rimsky Korsakov Conservatory (just across the street from the Mariinsky) in an evening of Ballet Stars. On the 19th she dances Romeo and Juliet at the Mariinsky.

Andrei Mercuriev will shortly be joining Galina Stepanenko in Carmen Suite, April 12 at the Bolshoi.

Catherine, I wrote this on dansomanie for two reasons:
- first, Natalia talked about a DVD (she refered to Ekaterina Belyaeva review of Ondine) and said that Vishneva would probably be filmed in Ondine in July
- second, I went to see the playbill for July on the Mariinsky website (it was a few days ago) and Ondine was only scheduled on the 18th of July (just before the London tour).
But in between, things seem to have completely changed and there are new dates for Ondine: nothing in July, May 3rd and 5th, June 7th. No information is given about the casts.
Of course I will precise the changes in the special thread. Sorry! (but your post is quite providential because it made me realize of the changes on the Mariinsky playbill).

Ballet star Igor Zelensky, one of three male dancers honored at the Sixth International Mariinsky Ballet Festival running this week.

A reconstruction of a 19th-century French classic, a new cutting-edge piece set to music of Dmitry Shostakovich with the plot inspired by Nikolai Gogols’s “The Overcoat” and a delicious cocktail of the choreography of Marius Petipa, George Balanchine and William Forsythe are at the heart of the Sixth International Mariinsky Ballet Festival which opened Thursday with Pierre Lacotte’s revival of Jules Perrot 1843 “Ondine.”

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